Newsletter

Vilsack to touch on agricultural job creation

Representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture say Secretary Tom Vilsack's speech at Tuesday at Kansas State University will be a wide-ranging address about the economic benefits of agriculture.

"He's really going to be talking about the importance of agriculture in job creation all across the country," USDA Deputy Press Secretary Stephanie Chan said in a phone interview Monday afternoon.

Courtney Rowe, the press secretary for USDA, said in an email that Vilsack will touch on agriculture production, renewable energy and the importance of research.

Vilsack's visit comes amid a hubbub over a ground beef filler that the industry calls "lean, finely-textured beef" but has become better-known as "pink slime." USDA brought the item into the national consciousness last month when it announced that school districts would be allowed to opt out of receiving beef that contains the product. Gov. Sam Brownback and other governors of meat-processing states have decried the backlash against the product, which has caused its main manufacturer to suspend operations at three plants, including one in Garden City, as media hysteria.

Neither Chan nor Rowe said that Vilsack will address that controversy in his prepared remarks Tuesday, but he is set to have a news conference directly after the speech, which is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. at McCain Auditorium.

He also is scheduled to dedicate a new USDA Agricultural Research Service Center for Grain and Animal Health Research in Manhattan at 3 p.m Tuesday.

In a news release Monday, Vilsack also announced that USDA will provide $5 million to Western Plains Energy LLC for construction of a biogas anaerobic digester in Oakley.

Western Plains currently produces about 50 million gallons of ethanol annually in Oakley. The digester is expected to replace 90 percent of the fossil fuels Western Plains currently consumes to process the fuel with waste from a local cattle feedlot. According to the news release, the project is expected to create 15 permanent full-time jobs and almost 100 "additional construction opportunities."

"For the first time in 13 years, imported oil accounts for less than 50 percent of the oil consumed in America," Vilsack said in a prepared statement. "That is because we're producing more domestically, using more alternative fuels, and using less energy through energy efficiency efforts."